Wednesday, February 23, 2005
I don't get it. Perhaps I am too naive, dumb or insensitive to understand, I suppose this is possible. A few weeks ago, someone said to me that people are defined by thier actions. Bad people do bad things and good people do good things. I cannot believe this. This is too black and white, too cut and dried for me. People are much more complicated than this. We have all done things we are not proud of, and we have all made mistakes, this doesn't make us bad people. Maybe, I am too much of a shades of grey type of gal. This is partly why I didn't go to law school.
This, of course, only has a little to do with what I want to say. When Harvard President Summers commented about women in the sciences, people went berserk. Offensive or not, when Jon Stewart jokes about it, it is still funny. The war, it is not an inherently funny subject. But there is a reason George Stephanopoulos includes a bit called the Sunday Funnies. Having an absolute moron as our president, isn't funny, but it sure does make for some great jokes. Racism, sexism discrimination, stereotyping, profiling and any other ism, or ing....none of these things are funny. Nonetheless, comics make thier livelihoods making us laugh about these very things. There is a reason that we love Richard Pryor, (young) Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappel, the 'Blue Collar' comics that make jokes about hicks, even Andrew Dice Clay still has a following. Some people argue that this perpetuates the state of things...I say LOOSEN UP people. For the love of anything at all....not everything is said with the intent to be offensive.
These are knitting blogs. We bond over our shared love of yarn and needles. Sometimes we talk about our day, sometimes we vent, sometimes we say something because we think it is cute or funny. Yesterday, somebody wrote (now, of course I can't remember who it was) about her frustration with undgrads. She made a comment about how completely idiotic they can be. She was VENTING about her job, not trying to offend her undergraduate readers- and it really was quite funny.
Again, maybe I am too naive, dumb or insensitive to understand. Maybe I have just seen so much in my life that nothing offends me anymore. In any case, the ability to laugh at ourselves is bliss. ¶ 8:10 AM
This, of course, only has a little to do with what I want to say. When Harvard President Summers commented about women in the sciences, people went berserk. Offensive or not, when Jon Stewart jokes about it, it is still funny. The war, it is not an inherently funny subject. But there is a reason George Stephanopoulos includes a bit called the Sunday Funnies. Having an absolute moron as our president, isn't funny, but it sure does make for some great jokes. Racism, sexism discrimination, stereotyping, profiling and any other ism, or ing....none of these things are funny. Nonetheless, comics make thier livelihoods making us laugh about these very things. There is a reason that we love Richard Pryor, (young) Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappel, the 'Blue Collar' comics that make jokes about hicks, even Andrew Dice Clay still has a following. Some people argue that this perpetuates the state of things...I say LOOSEN UP people. For the love of anything at all....not everything is said with the intent to be offensive.
These are knitting blogs. We bond over our shared love of yarn and needles. Sometimes we talk about our day, sometimes we vent, sometimes we say something because we think it is cute or funny. Yesterday, somebody wrote (now, of course I can't remember who it was) about her frustration with undgrads. She made a comment about how completely idiotic they can be. She was VENTING about her job, not trying to offend her undergraduate readers- and it really was quite funny.
Again, maybe I am too naive, dumb or insensitive to understand. Maybe I have just seen so much in my life that nothing offends me anymore. In any case, the ability to laugh at ourselves is bliss. ¶ 8:10 AM
